Category: News

In this week’s episode, Ian and I discuss two recent adventurous indie albums: Yves Tumor’s Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds), which I like more than Ian; and Black Country, New Road‘s Live At Bush Hall, which Ian likes more than me. Listen to us fail to persuade the other to our respective causes!

But before that, we dive into how the battle between The Cure and Ticketmaster assess the pioneering goth-rockers’ robust popularity on the road in 2023. We also discuss the utility of SXSW in terms of breaking bands and whether an artist can actually “quiet quit” on stage or if that’s just a fancy way of saying that you stunk up the joint. Finally, there’s a discussion of my recent column about the best debut albums ever, in which Ian tells me which ones I missed.

In Recommendation Corner, I talk up the new EP by power pop punkers Dazy, OTHERBODY, while Ian stumps for Hua Hsu’s hit memoir Stay True.

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 131 here or below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

Tucker Carlson‘s perpetually confused face is his signature move at this point, so The Daily Show had a little fun with what happens behind-the-scenes to make the scandalized Fox News host look so constantly befuddled. In a new sketch titled, “Tucker Carlson’s Face Coach,” Michael Kosta plays Gavin Bancroft, the secret architect of Tucker’s nightly expressions.

“If you’ve ever seen Tucker looking like a groom that pooped himself at the altar or a scandalized baked potato, well, then you’ve seen my work,” Bancroft says before giving Carlson instructions. “All right, Tucker, gaze into the camera like you’re a 10-year-old watching a cow give birth.”

According to Bancroft, “it’s actually a lot of hard work” because, contrary to popular belief, Carlson wasn’t “born with a face that looks like an inbred boat shoe.” That said, Bancroft relishes his job as Carlson’s face coach:

It’s such a treat for me to get to work with Tucker. He’s got all the attributes a face coach could want, a 40-pound skull, a natural mouth-breather, the haircut of a drunk lacrosse dad. It’s a face that’s just made to tell old people that Abbott Elementary is critical race theory.

Of course, it also helps that Carlson comes into work knowing the assignment.

“At the end of the day, Tucker knows where his bread is buttered,” Bancroft reveals. “And that’s looking like Frankenstein walked in on his parents having sex.”

(Via The Daily Show)

Latin music stars Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro are officially engaged. Nearly two weeks ago, the pair fulfill a promise they made to fans in the past to collaborate on a joint project. Apparently, the three-track EP RR, which is out today, was only the beginning of a more permanent grouping.

The love birds used the release of their latest single from the project, “Beso,” and its accompanying visual to break the news of their engagement to fans. In the video, the recording artist lets viewers into an intimate vacation in the snowy mountains, which look eerily familiar to the same scenery surrounding the home they rented during their Christmas vacation in Japan.

Rosalía sings the romantic chorus, which roughly translates to, “Now I need another kiss / One of those that you give me / Being away from you is hell / Being close to you is my peace / And I love whenever you arrive / And I hate when you’re leaving / I’m going with you to kill / Don’t leave me alone, where are you going, where are you going?”

Alejandro echoes her sentiments in his verse, saying, “We’re already alone, and all my feelings don’t fit in this pen / Hey, how to tell you? / You are the infinite exponent / The moon is too small for you / And even though it is far away, you are the person closest to me / If my cell phone is going to go off, I’ll just let you know too / If there was another life, I drank of your waters / I owe you my being.”

The video ends with a teary Rosalía showing off a diamond ring. Alejandro also shared a congratulatory message he and Rosalía got from Cardi B on his Instagram Story.

Fans of the pair were over the moon to hear about the engagement, taking to social media to shower the musicians with well wishes and congratulatory notes.

Watch the full proposal via the “Beso” video above.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Some couples have great meet-cute stories to tell at parties. It’s a pretty safe bet, though, that if it were a competition, no one would be able to top Teyana Taylor and Iman Shumpert‘s tale, which involves Justin Bieber, celebrity basketball, and Spike Tee’s stellar defensive instincts.

Taylor recounted the thrilling yarn during her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Thursday night to promote her new movie A Thousand And One, which apparently has a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. After she recalled her first meeting with Beyoncé (to teach her the Chicken Noodle Soup dance), Kimmel pulled out a photo of Taylor with Justin Bieber that was taken during a celebrity basketball game. In it, Bieber’s dribbling while being chased by Taylor, both grimacing from the effort.

“I was on his ass,” Taylor joked. “He was kinda showing off ’cause he knew he was good. I said, ‘Oh yeah? Aight, bet.’… But that was the very moment that my husband fell in love with me. He’s like, ‘Who is that girl? Her defense is on point!’” She said the similarity between them — Shumpert was known as a defensive specialist during his NBA days — got his attention but she made his pursuit… well, interesting.

“Even though he was feeling [me] this day, he didn’t get me that day!” she proclaimed. She explained, though, that it was three years before she agreed to go out with him. He remained persistent and they became friends and business partners (Taylor took on Shumpert as a styling client), but after getting to know him — and see him with his shirt off — they fell in love.

You can watch the full interview above.

WARNING: this post contains spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum had a thrilling enough ending that a fourth John Wick movie was not only inevitable, it was also needed. But the question of “why” John Wick: Chapter 4 needed to happen is something that star Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski took seriously. If you’ve seen the film — and I hope you have, because spoilers are coming — you know the answer.

“We had the opportunity [to do another film] because the audience [response to] Chapter 3, and we were like, ‘What was the Why?’” Reeves said following Chapter 4‘s South by Southwest premiere. “And when Chad and I was talking, the ‘Why?’ was death — and it was John Wick’s death. For him to get his peace, or freedom, in a way… That was the reason to make the movie. It can’t just be, ‘Let’s do another one.’ It was really about death, or a way of dying.”

Stahelski added, “We kind of took the way of dying — or the way we live well to die well — as the theme.”

John Wick’s death was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Reeves’ favorite scene in the movie. “When he says, ‘Helen.’ That, for me, after like eight years of playing the role and after shooting the [massive fight on the other set of stairs], that part that was [a poignant link] to the past,” he said. John Wick: Chapter 4 also potentially sets up the John Wick-less future of John Wick, too.

But for now, make that money, Baba Yaga.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

Earlier this month, The Cure shared a plan to prevent scalpers from ruining their upcoming tour. It was a great idea — until Ticketmaster decided to sabotage by doubling the prices via added fees.

Robert Smith spoke up about it at length, unleashing his frustration on social media. Now, fellow legendary musician Neil Young took to his website to discuss the issue, making a detailed post about the situation. He wrote:

“TICKETMASTER FEES at 30%. It’s over. The old days are gone. I get letters blaming me for $3,000.00 tickets for a benefit I am doing. That money does not go to me or the benefit. Artists have to worry about ripped off fans blaming them for Ticketmaster add-ons and scalpers. CONCERT TOURS are no longer fun. CONCERT TOURS not what they were. – ny.”

His post also shares an article written about The Cure’s situation.

Meanwhile, Young has been hesitant to perform live since the pandemic. A few weeks ago, he made an unannounced appearance at the United For Old Growth march and rally in Victoria, Canada. Last summer, he announced he wouldn’t be performing at Farm Aid, saying, “I will not be at Farmaid this year. I am not ready for that yet. I don’t think it is safe in the pandemic. I miss it very much.”

Neil Young is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

On Instagram, You star Victoria Pedretti called out a “well known” actor who made a derogatory comment towards her at an event last year.

“On my bday last year, a ‘well known’ actor walked up to me at a party and said, ‘I’ve jacked off to you so many times’ … I was shocked by the audacity. This is AFTER he expressed how much he RESPECTED me as an actor lol,” she wrote. “Sometimes I enjoy modesty, sometimes I don’t. It’s a joke to think that my own modesty will protect me from any disrespect I may experience as a femme body. Also, shout out to my body. I love you. You’re mine.”

The post, which included a nude birthday selfie, has since been deleted.

The post has made its way to social media, eliciting support from Pedretti’s many fans. Since, people have speculated that the post was removed, rather than deleted, due to Instagram’s strict rules against nudity.

“That is why it’s complete bullsh*t when people victim blames women for what they wear. Modesty doesn’t save us from the disrespect we still get from nasty men. Victoria Pedretti is brave and a total badass, IG couldn’t handle it,” one supporter tweeted in response to Pedretti’s caption. Another added, “Here’s a fun game: let’s never ever tell women that their mere existence arouses you unless you have a sexual relationship?? Yeah?? Cool.”

You can read the full post from The Haunting of Hill House actress below.

(Via Decider)

It would be an understatement to say that The White Lotus‘s second season continues to inspire decadent dreams of jetting off to Taormina, Sicily. Heck, even the Aperol Spritz (with Prosecco in it) has soared in popularity over the past handful of months. Additionally, the villa rented by Daphne and Harper is available as an Airbnb (although I do not want to see those cleaning fees), and in short, everyone wants to be miserable in luxury and to paste on happy smiles for social media.

Alright, so that last sentence might be a little too much, but according to the American Express Global Travel Trends Report, the trend is palpable. A majority (64%) of their survey respondents declared that, yes, they have found inspiration to book a particular destination “after seeing it featured on a TV show, news source, or movie,” and naturally, nearly half (48%) declared that they “want to travel somewhere they can show off on social media.”

Of course, one can also expect massive crowds while following TV-inspired trends, so perhaps it’s best to save The White Lotus focus for a few years? Or at least, wait until people are flocking to Tokyo (to join those who are belatedly inspired by Lost In Translation and many other TV shows and movies) after The White Lotus Season 3. Whatever the timing, expect the effect to be real when it comes to impacting hotel prices. Yikes.

(Via American Express via IndieWire)

Donald Trump is doing great, you guys. He’s definitely not posting all-caps rants on social media in the middle of the night, and alienating his wife, and desperately asking his followers to sign a petition to keep him out of prison (and some money would be great, too). Trump is feelin’ fine, happily listening to the same damn songs he always listens to — unless he gets indicted.

Then he’s promising “death and destruction.”

In one of his classic stream-of-consciousness Truth Social diatribes this morning, Trump wrote, “What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country? Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely hates the USA!”

This post comes after Trump claimed that “EVERYBODY KNOWS I’M 100% INNOCENT,” but Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg “IS JUST CARRYING OUT THE PLANS OF THE RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS. OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!” Does sharing a photo of yourself holding a baseball bat next to Bragg’s head count as “peaceful”?

(Via Raw Story)

In recent months, there have been rumors about a supposed feud between Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber. It all started earlier this year; here’s an explainer if you want to get caught up. Now, Gomez has offered a new statement about the situation.

In an Instagram Story shared today (March 24), Gomez wrote, “Hailey Bieber reached out to me and let me know that she has been receiving death threats and such hateful negativity. This isn’t what I stand for. No one should have to experience hate or bullying. I’ve always advocated for kindness and really want this all to stop. [heart emoji].”

Earlier this month, Gomez addressed the situation less directly, writing on TikTok, “Please, please be kinder and consider others mental health. My heart has been heavy and I only want good for everyone. All my love [folded hands emoji].”

That came a couple weeks after Gomez announced she was going to take a break from social media, saying in a live TikTok video, “I’m 30. I’m too old for this… I’m just going to take a break from everything.”

Meanwhile, Gomez recently spoke about new music she’s been working on, saying, “The music I’m doing right now is about real things that I’m walking through. It’s really powerful, strong, and very pop. The theme generally is freedom — freedom from relationships, freedom from the darkness.”